Edmund consolidates their trays. (His plate mysteriously still has a little puddle of baked beans, but has otherwise been picked clean.) "I'll bus these. Go on. And - we can get back to it later."

"You're insane if you think I'm letting you walk to the cafeteria alone right now. Call me paranoid but I'm coming with. I have alchemy lab downstairs anyway."

"Well. I'm not turning you down."

(Mostly he just wanted to hear him say it.)

Scorpius notices that.

"Pevensie, you're such an ass," he says, hopping to his feet and offering Edmund a hand up.

"Granted."

He takes Scorpius' hand and hauls himself to his feet.

He doesn't seem inclined to let go.

Scorpius notices this also! "Guess the rumors are nearly true now, huh?" he says, squeezing.

Off they go, then.

"Well, not the cupcake-inducing ones, but we do seem to be on our merry way."

Lake isn't at breakfast today. Lex has a line all ready to go about the hypocrisy of criticizing other people's eating habits and then immediately skipping a meal, when - he comes in with bloody Pevensie.

Fortunately, Lex already ate as much as he could stomach today, and he only got as much as he could stomach in the first place, so at least he's not wasting food, the horror.

Oh there Lex is, and he looks like he's even eaten! Scorpius considers this a success, and a resounding one at that.

He gives Edmund a quick peck on the lips before making his way to Lex.

Oh absolutely fucking not.

Absolutely fucking yes. "Hey, Lex. Want company walking to the labs?" he says, probably not oblivious to the death glare. And of course now the whole school has even more fuel for its gossip mill.

Lex strongly considers making some kind of anatomically implausible threat. But, ultimately, they're in the cafeteria, and threatening Scorpius Lake in public is the kind of shit that gets Ibrahim or someone on a vigilante kick.

Also, he has absolutely no excuse to be this pissed off, and he's exactly self-aware to know that. He doesn't have some kind of claim on Lake. Even if he did, Pevensie was by all accounts there first. But more to the point, he doesn't, because he would set his own dick on fire before touching Lake's perfectly formed arse. And Lake clearly knows that. Because instead of playing some stupid will-they-won't-they game with Lex, who doesn't want him, he's back to fucking around with Pevensie.

"I would love nothing more," he says in a tone that most would use for the kind of anatomically implausible threat he was just considering.

Scorpius purses his lips to prevent himself from saying what he wants to say. He tries to think of something else, and eventually goes for, "I think that whatever is going through your head right now is probably not true. Not that I'm claiming to know, exactly, what it is. But I'm not gonna stop liking you just because I also like other people, you're gonna have to work for me to stop liking you."

"I've been working at nothing else for the past twenty-four hours."

But Lex drags himself to his feet.

"You're doing shit at it."

"I repeatedly insulted you for trying to save my life, confessed to premeditated murder, pissed off all of your friends, implied you were a paedophile, stated outright you were trying to pay me for sex with an apple, and stopped barely short of calling your mother a whore. And threatened your life. I'm doing the best I can, Lake."

"Then I guess I'm just going to have to keep liking you, aren't I?"

"Christ in Hell. You're a conversational juggernaut."

"That sounded like it was trying to be an insult but I think I feel flattered instead."

"Noted."

"Making plans to use that against me in the future somehow? Looking forward to it."

"Ignore enough of my pins and eventually one of them will be poison."

"Sounds hot."

Lex is startled into laughter. "God. You're inhuman."

"That, conversely, sounds like flirting."